We are looking for a hotel for these three nights in Boulder. While we love St. Julien and Boulderado websites, we really don’t want to spend $500 a night to stay there.
It doesn’t help that we know nothing about the areas in Boulder.
Any suggestions? We will have a rental car, so would like parking included.
Something must be going on in Boulder during that time because some places are sold out already…
We’d love to find something less than $300 a night but if that’s impossible, let me know.
And what’s wrong with the Boulder University Hotel…it’s really cheap!
I’m guessing those are the dates for CU/Boulder move in?
What are you doing in Boulder? Boulderado and St. Julien are nice if you want/need to be in the downtown Pearl Street Mall area. The Bradley is a very nice B&B near the Pearl Street Mall. But there’s lots of other options if your don’t need to be right at the downtown mall.
If you want to be closer to the CU campus, there’s a bunch of hotels along 28th street between Pearl and Baseline, including several recently built (HGI, Embassy, Residence). Millenium Harvest House is a really convenient location for campus.
If you don’t really need to sleep in Boulder and have a rental car, there’s tons of hotels in Louisville, Broomfield and Westminster right off 36 – all different types and price ranges. Louisville is a 5-10 minute drive into Boulder.
Depending on what you are looking to do in Boulder, a cool thing to do in August is to get a cottage at the Boulder/Colorado Chatauqua. Very historic and scenic. But unique, so it might not fit your travel plans.
We are going to a wedding in Denver the weekend before, and want to spend those three days after in Boulder visiting friends and relatives there. We will have a rental car and can drive. We don’t want to rent a cottage…at all.
We saw some hotels in Louisville but would love specific suggestions, if possible…since we know nothing about the areas where these hotels are located.
St. Julien, Boulderado and the like are lovely. But we absolutely do not want to spend over $550 a night to stay there. At all.
We do not need to be near the college campus at all…not at all.
We need a safe, clean and quiet place to sleep…with included parking, maybe breakfast, and easy access for driving. We will drive to Fort Collins for one very long day, see a relative in Boulder, and then see a friend who lives just outside of Boulder on the Denver side. We also would like to drive to Rocky Mt National if we can.
Boulder itself is pretty small. The hotels along the turnpike(36) are all typical of the name brands - a Marriott is a Marriott, a Hampton Inn is a typical Hampton Inn. There are several groupings of office parks along 36, plus a mall, and the hotels mostly serve those companies. They are all 5-15 minutes to Boulder and the campus. Not exciting, not truck stops. Probably not better than the hotel you are staying at in Denver.
It really is a lovely place and if you don’t stay there, try to go for breakfast or lunch On Weekends there is a shuttle (very limited parking if you aren’t staying there) from the school at 20th and Baseline, and the park is at 11th and Baseline. Oh, you say you could just walk those 9-10 blocks? Uphill.
I’d recommend the Millenium Harvest House (scene of many pre and post game celebrations in Boulder) or the Residence Inn that is right there too.
My prejudiced opinion would be the same as Colorado_mom. Longmont or one of the other communities surrounding Boulder. When visiting Colorado, I stay in Longmont with my friend and find the community to be relaxed and is an easier spot for going north to Ft. Collins and RMNP. There are good restaurants in many places in Colorado, Longmont included. In Boulder itself you are paying higher prices for more close mountain access and traffic congestion. Boulder is a lot of fun, and beautiful, but if your focus is elsewhere, don’t pay for Boulder.
Given the other thread, I sort of hate to suggest this, but an airbnb can be quieter and more affordable than a hotel in a prime summer vacation spot.
When D3 lived in Boulder, we often booked at hotels in Bloomfield or Louisville, about a 10-15 minute drive from town. Usually in the $100-125 range, not luxury hotels but decent, think Best Western/Hampton Inn level.
A day in Boulder should do you. Definitely spend time wandering the Pearl Street Mall. The Chautauqua Park is nice, and there’s a trail you can walk. We drove up to the Flatirons from there and stopped at a couple of pull offs for great views.
My D drove me from Boulder to Estes Park, about a 40 minute drive that passes through varied lovely scenery. There’s apparently a loop you can make through Rocky Mountain Park that’s wonderful, but we didn’t have time to do that because she had to get back for a concert.
If you want to go south to Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods has glorious scenery and you can drive there in a couple of hours from Boulder.
This year CU move in was Aug 19-21 (Monday through Wed). Next year it will probably be Aug 17-20. This will make moving around Boulder very difficult on those dates, especially in the mornings. When my sister moved my nephew in years ago, they were at the dorm at 7 am, out by 9, and the traffic heading into Boulder was backed up for miles on the turnpike.
It’s likely Ft. Collins (CSU) move in will be the same dates. You might be better off staying in Denver or in one of the towns surrounding Boulder.
I’ve had luck using points at the Hyatt Place Boulder when rates are otherwise high if that’s an option for you. All those properties by the mall are fine too—Marriott, HGI, etc. Easy drive to Pearl St or anywhere from there (unless move in traffic previously mentioned is an issue). If going to Ft Collins anyway you might stay there a night or two. There’s a great newish hotel downtown called the Elizabeth (part of the Marriott collection but more of a boutique hotel). Good location in cute downtown area. I don’t know about CSU move in dates though.
Thank you all for the suggestions so far. I really appreciate the time. Yes, college move in seems to be that time…but we don’t really have a choice now…airline reservations are already made.
I checked out those little cabins…but it looks like the minimum stay is four nights and we will only be there three. I’m going to call tomorrow just to make sure.
The Millenium Harvest is over $350 a night. Is that the going rate? Same with Residence Inn. I mean if that’s the going price, I guess we will pay it. But we really don’t need to be in downtown Boulder, right?
Seems like the hotels in the Louisville or Longmont or Bloomfield area are our best bet…and we will have a car…but would like specific recommendations if anyone has any. We will check online tomorrow.
We have friends and relatives who live in Boulder who we plan to see, and the relative in Ft. Collins. So we don’t want to stay in Denver. It sounds like Longmont will be the most convenient for the places we want to go to. Any specific Longmont hotels you folks would suggest!
Re: Denver…we are actually staying at a resort with negotiated rates for the wedding party. It’s gorgeous.
Yeah, those are football game/move in/graduation rates. Any of the hotels in Louisville or Longmont are fine for your purposes. You could even visit your friends in Boulder, drive up to RMNP and spend the night there and the next day and night, drive down to Ft. Collins and then back to Denver to fly out. A big loop.
There are 4 or 5 hotels all newish in south Longmont - right at the Diagonal, Hover and Ken Pratt. Springhill Suites, Courtyard Marriott, Holiday Inn and a couple others. All are less than 10 years old and clean and affordable. Nothing fancy, but convenient jumping off point to Estes , Boulder and Fort Collins which it sounds like is the draw, not the immediate area. All probably less than $150 a night, except maybe the suites one. They’ll be a bit higher if it’s move in week, but not nearly as crazy as Boulder.
@twoinanddone we wanted to do your idea of staying and moving around. Unfortunately a lot of the places require a 3 night stay. Those little cabins require a 4 night stay.
I need to look at a map and figure out distances.
If those little cabins are affordable enough and will allow three nights, and are located well, we might do those.
Just have to ask (an aside question) do parents moving their kids into college really spend $550 and up for hotel rooms?
We have a house in the Cherry Creek area outside of Denver and there’s nowhere the traffic congestion in Denver that you would find in other big cities that I’m used to (say SF or LA or Chicago or NY). From our house, Boulder is 45 minutes away, Ft Collins is 1 hour 15 min, and Colorado Springs is 1 hour 15 minutes. Personally, I would just stay in a nice part of Denver.
I encourage research on Estes Park, at the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. It would be a lovely holiday (if you are ok with even higher altitude), and your cousins might like meeting you there. We locals love an excuse to visit Rocky. Extra bonus - it is a bit cooler there.